Chapter 42: Escaping Marriage, White Moonlight 19 Two little fingers shivering with cold...
Lu Jingming remembered that his mother died on a freezing winter day. She smiled and set the house on fire, then looked at him lovingly as he ran farther and farther away in fear.
It was late at night and he was not even tall enough to reach the door. He wanted to run out to find someone to put out the fire, but when he knocked on the door and found someone, his mother was still dead.
He sat in front of the burnt door, looking so frightened that he couldn't even muster the expression of crying.
Suddenly, a richly dressed man broke into the yard, crying loudly. Ignoring the dissuasion of people around him, he took away his mother's body.
The man came and left in a hurry, and did not notice Lu Jingming shivering at the door from beginning to end.
The seven-year-old boy stared at it for a long time, then remembered that this was what his mother had told him, Dad.
The small courtyard where he had lived since childhood was burned beyond recognition and was filled with a sickening burnt smell. Lu Jingming stood up, holding his nose. He was still wearing his sleeping clothes and wandered barefoot aimlessly on the snowy street.
This was the first time he walked out of the courtyard, and the streets outside were unfamiliar to him.
He walked for an unknown amount of time until his toes were almost frozen. He could no longer move and fell forward into the snow in an alley.
My whole face was buried in the dirty snow, and that's when the tears started to flow, without a sound.
Suddenly, he smelled the aroma of food, and his empty stomach growled in response.
Lu Jingming raised his head while sobbing, trying to find the source of the fragrance, and happened to meet a pair of clever and curious eyes.
"What are you doing?"
The girl in front of him looked younger than him, had two pigtails, and was wearing a coarse cloth dress of an indecipherable color. She was looking at him curiously.
Lu Jingming didn't care whether she was beautiful or ugly. His eyes quickly fell on the roasted sweet potato in her hand.
The girl naturally noticed it and immediately took a few steps back vigilantly, protecting the sweet potato behind her.
Seven-year-old Lu Jingming frowned, and his expression looked a little funny, which was inconsistent with his age. He wanted to grab the food, but he had been lying in the snow for too long and he couldn't stand up all of a sudden.
The girl took a few steps back, thinking that this was a weird person.
But he was really good-looking, a good-looking weirdo.
Lu Jingming was even more angry. He puffed up his face and said nothing. He punched the snow with his small fist, making a shallow hole.
The weirdo is sulking now, the girl thought.
She turned around and looked at the sweet potato in her hand reluctantly, and couldn't help swallowing her saliva. This was the sweet potato that her elder sister had thrown away out of disgust. She stared at it furtively for a long time before picking it up, and it was still warm.
Pan Yuan took her children out for a walk today. To show her virtue, Madam Ni brought her and several concubines along. However, when they stood next to their elder sister who was raised with great love and care, they looked like her maids, with hunched backs and timidity.
Along the way, the children born to Pan Yuan and Madam Ni walked in front. Whatever the eldest sister wanted, the servants behind them would buy it for her. Soon, the servants' hands were full of bags.
The girl, who hadn't had a hot meal for three days, followed behind, listless and with unsteady steps.
Suddenly, the person in front stopped.
It turned out that the eldest sister wanted to try the delicacies they had just bought. The servants opened the oil paper packages one by one, and the eldest sister picked out a roasted sweet potato from it, took a tentative bite, and then spat it out: "It's so hot!"
Madam Ni smiled and asked the servant to take it away. She wiped her eldest sister's fingers with a clean handkerchief and said, "These are the food for the poor people. Be good, we won't eat this. Didn't we just buy crystal cakes?"
It was just a small episode on the road, but the girl's hungry eyes were fixed on the back of the servant holding the sweet potatoes.
As the master bought more and more things, the servants could not carry them all, so they had to throw the things that the eldest sister had tasted and didn't like into the corner.
The girl's listless eyes suddenly lit up. When they passed by, she squatted down and pretended to wipe the snow off her shoes, and then she put the oil-paper bag into her arms in the blink of an eye.
After returning home, the mother did not see the father behind her. She looked disappointed and went to rest without asking any more questions.
The girl touched the warm thing in her arms and looked for many places, but she always met the servants in the mansion. She was worried that those people would come to steal her food, so she ran for a long time with her short legs before she found a good place at the back door of Pan's mansion.
She used her hands to clear the snow off the steps and sat down panting. But just as she took a bite, a man came in from the alley and fell down after taking a few steps.
The girl struggled for a long time, and finally carefully broke off a small piece and handed it to Lu Jingming who was still lying on the ground.
The two of them sat together at the back door of the Pan Mansion, eating the hard-earned hot food in their hands.
Lu Jingming finished eating quickly and stared at the sweet potato in the girl's hand.
The girl had no choice but to give him another small piece, her voice filled with tears: "I'll give you a little at the end!"
After eating the sweet and soft sweet potatoes, my body seemed to warm up.
The girl next to him ate politely, which was a torture for Lu Jingming who was not full yet. He lowered his eyes and stared at his curled up and swollen feet in a daze.
The girl finally finished eating and poked Lu Jingming: "What's your name? Why are you at my back door?"
Lu Jingming glanced at her: "Jingming."
The girl seemed very interested: "Which two words are they?"
Lu Jingming thought for a moment and wrote his name on the snow in front of him with his fingers. Although he was only seven years old, he had started learning to read at an early age, so writing was naturally no problem for him.
The girl saw him writing and drawing on the ground, so she moved over and squatted down too. However, she forgot that she couldn't read, so she wouldn't recognize what he wrote. She tilted her head and looked at it for a long time, then laughed: "What beautiful writing! How amazing!"
Lu Jingming raised the corner of his mouth slightly. Seeing the girl looking at him with admiration, he couldn't help but reveal a hint of pride and complacency on his usually stern face.
Only then did he notice that the girl had a pair of very bright eyes, and when she looked at you, it seemed as if the stars in the sky were reflected in them.
"What's wrong with your face?" Lu Jingming suddenly noticed that the girl's left face was a little bruised and swollen, and her eyes there also looked a little unnatural.
The girl subconsciously covered her face and said, "Nothing, I just bumped into something accidentally." But her eyes were red with grievance.
The day before yesterday, when mother heard that father and Madam Ni were going to take them out of the house, she suddenly hit her in the face with an embroidery tent. The girl was frightened and burst into tears, but mother did not show any mercy. She did not stop until the girl's face was swollen. She hugged her in her arms and cried as if she had just woken up from a dream.
"Child! Mother has no other choice!"
"If your father saw the wound on your face, he would definitely come to see us. Then we mother and I could live a good life! Child, do you know?! Mother always has her own difficulties!"
The girl's face was filled with tears. She nodded silently in her mother's arms: "Daughter knows."
She knew that her mother's heartache and tears were real, but the pain in her body was also real.
Her mother hugged her tighter, and the girl could hardly breathe and couldn't help crying loudly.
Seeing her eyes turn red, Lu Jingming was at a loss for a moment: "Did someone bully you?"
The girl nodded with red eyes. She pointed at the door behind her and complained to the little boy she had just met: "The people in here are so bad. They always bully me."
Lu Jingming suddenly straightened his face: "Believe me, when I grow up, I will definitely teach these people a lesson for you and make those who bullied us pay the price."
"What's the price? Why do I have to pay it?" the girl was puzzled.
Lu Jingming scratched his head. He had only heard others say this. After thinking for a while, he said, "The price... is to make them very miserable and very unlucky."
The girl opened her mouth wide: "Really?"
Lu Jingming stretched out his little finger, afraid that she would look down on him: "If you don't believe me, let's make a pinky promise."
The girl also stretched out her hand, and hooked her two shivering little fingers together, as if they both felt the warmth from each other.
"So when will you grow up and come find me?"
"Soon, it will come soon..."
The next moment, the girl grew into a slim young lady with a sad expression, as if blaming him for coming so late, and then she fell from the cliff like a butterfly with broken wings.
Even if my body is torn to pieces, I will die with my eyes open.
Lu Jingming woke up from his dream with a start, his eyes were bloodshot, making his face look even paler.
The unhealed wound on his back and the deep-seated regret in his heart intertwined together, causing him to clutch his clothes tightly over his chest in pain, bend down deeply, and breathe heavily.
It was still late at night in Shangxi County. He stayed here today and sat there in boredom until dawn.
*
In the morning, Ah Li knocked on Lu Jingming's door: "Sir, Aunt Wei has prepared breakfast. Do you want to eat together?"
The door opened quickly, and Ali was startled: "Master, did you not sleep well last night? Why do you look so bad?"
Lu Jingming just shook his head slightly: "I'm fine." Then he walked around Ali and went out.
Ah Fu and Xiao Shun also stayed here with Lu Jingming this time. It was their first time in Shangxi County. They were wandering around the courtyard when they saw Lu Jingming stand up. They trotted over and said, "Master, you're awake."
Lu Jingming glanced at the door and asked, "Have you got everything?"
Xiao Shun replied, "I got it. Are you going back home now, sir?"
"Let's go now." Lu Jingming pinched his eyebrows.
When the three of them reached the door, Ali stopped them and said, "Young Master, please have breakfast before leaving."
There was a barely perceptible pleading in her eyes as she looked at Lu Jingming earnestly.
However, Lu Jingming did not meet her eyes and walked straight towards the carriage. Ah Fu and Xiao Shun followed him with awkward expressions.
Ali chased after him again: "Young Master, what's wrong with you?" She knew that Lu Jingming was in a very bad mood at the moment, but even if he was angry before, he would not be so indifferent.
After he returned home, he became more and more distant from her. She no longer knew what to do to make him happier.
Lu Jingming's pace slowed down, and Ali finally grabbed his sleeve: "Master, what happened? Is it related to me?"
Lu Jingming didn't turn around, but lowered his eyes: "You once said that Miss Pan treated you badly, right?"
"Yes." Although Ali was surprised, he answered firmly.
She thought about it all night last night. Lu Jingming's strange behavior must be related to the Pan Mansion. He returned to Xingyang County and must have had dealings with the Pan Mansion, and became suspicious of her identity.
But what did this have to do with him? Why should he be so concerned?
Ali couldn't figure out the secret at all. After calming down, he could only ask him to stop doubting himself and they would deal with it later.
To eliminate his suspicion, we must try our best to sever the connection between Ali and Pan Yunli.
"I've been serving Miss Nine since I was a child. Miss Nine is a sweet-faced person with a bitter heart. She appears well-educated and kind to outsiders, but when she returns to the courtyard, she either beats or scolds us servants." Ali opened his sleeves, revealing scars crisscrossed with years of scars. "These are all from her beatings."
"Not only that, she also withheld our monthly wages. We often didn't have enough to eat and had no choice but to pick up discarded food from other courtyards."
"Miss Nine is beautiful and has been the master's favorite since she was a child. She studies and writes, like a fairy who is detached from the mundane world. However, she is extremely cruel to the servants."
"Sir, if Miss Nine is truly kindhearted, then why would I be wearing a wedding dress and fall off a cliff?"
Lu Jingming finally turned around. Ali saw him smile, but his eyes were cold.
Is that why you treated her so cruelly?
"Okay, I know everything." His expression was gentle.
The sleeve in his hand was ruthlessly pulled away. Ali, who was distracted, staggered a few steps and almost fell to the ground.
Lu Jingming got on the carriage and never looked back.
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